The Adventures of Author Tristan Higbee

4 Classic Climbs in Little Cottonwood Canyon

Here’s a quick TR of some classic Little Cottonwood climbs Thomas and I did on March 17. We did Crescent Crack (5.7+, 3 pitches) to Crescent Crack Direct (5.9) to Final Link (5.9 bolted slab), then rappelled down and did The Coffin (beautiful 5.9 crack). The first pitch was fun, with a couple neat double cracks thrown in near the top. The offwidth/chimney on the second pitch was epic! It seemed really, really hard for 5.7! I spent a long time inching and grunting my way up that thing. It didn’t help that I had my water bottle on the wrong side of me… I think Thomas was wondering what took me so long, but he understood as soon as he got to the belay.

Thomas on pitch 1 of Crescent Crack

Me starting pitch 2.

Some dude on the second pitch chimney/OW on Crescent Crack.

Instead of traversing down and right to end Crescent Crack, I kept climbing straight up into Crescent Crack Direct for the third pitch. It was a sweet arcing 5.9 crack that led to a fun dihedral, a couple tenuous bolt moves, and then the belay at the base of Final Link.

Thomas led the beautiful Final Link slab pitch. Several widely-spaced bolts protected the featureless slab, and Thomas was a bit freaked out. He grabbed the first couple bolts but got his head around the runouts soon after, finishing the rest of the pitch without a problem.

Some dude on the second pitch chimney/OW on Crescent Crack.

Me on The Coffin. Amazing crack!

Some dude on The Coffin. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Since we didn’t bring out approach shoes up with us, we had to gingerly scramble down the gully and back to the start of the climb in our climbing shoes. Not fun.

I would love to do Final Link and The Coffin again, but I didn’t think Crescent Crack was all the great. Definitely worth doing once, MAYBE even twice at some point, but I need time to forget about that second pitch…